


Our Own Side

by SunshineSanctuary



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Apocawasn't, Armageddodidn't, Canon Dialogue, Coda, Crowley is a Hot Mess, Developing Relationship, Experienced Aziraphale (Good Omens), I lost my best friend, M/M, Not Beta Read, Other, we're on our own side
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 15:54:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20028397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunshineSanctuary/pseuds/SunshineSanctuary
Summary: Coda fic: My take on Aziraphael's response to Crowley's "I lost my best friend" and the relationship development that follows. Legit just an excuse to add my commentary... :) annnd a self-indulgent epilogue ;)Dialogue -minus the epilogue- belongs to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.Characters belong to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.While this fic is mostly series coda, there are some influences from the book. I liked the phrasing of the “bastard” line better from the book so it features here. Also the “bus stop/bench” scene is a bit of a mash up. (since I am weak for casual touching)I adore both the series and the book more than I can say. If you haven’t read the book, please do. You won’t regret it.  (Pro-tip: The audiobook narrated by Martin Jarvis is phenomenal)If you liked it let me know. I love feedback :)





	1. Chapter 1

“Did you go to Alpha Centauri?” Aziraphael asked carefully. 

“Nah… changed my mind.” Crowley paused and his voice wavered. “Stuff happened. I lost my best friend.” 

The crack in Crowley’s voice went straight to Aziraphael’s heart. His expression shuttered. “I’m so sorry to hear it.” he said softly, a bit stiffly.  _ I’m so sorry, my dear. I just can’t cope with that right now.  _ He was, and he hated himself for it, grateful for the distance between them just then. He didn’t know how to handle a vulnerable Crowley. And this… this felt significant. It was all too… well, fast wasn’t really the right word was it? Too much anyway. 

Crowley was… well… he should be... his enemy. He had been, sort of, in the grand scheme of things. In any event, they’d been enemies for 6,000 years so that made them friends, Aziraphael supposed. He wasn’t sure what they were now. But Crowley was  _ grieving _ when the angel found him. Grieving for  _ Aziraphael.  _ The angel felt panic rise in his throat as he contemplated what that meant. 

...no, there simply wasn’t time for this. They had a world to save. 

“Listen, back in my bookshop…..”

***

“You could stay at my place, if you like.” 

Aziraphael’s heart wobbled, wondering what that meant. “I don’t think my side would like that,” he said finally, a feeble protest at best. He didn’t really mean it.

“You don’t have a side anymore.” Crowley said gently, “Neither of us do. We’re on our own side.” 

They were, weren’t they, Aziraphael thought. Heaven wasn’t much for loyalty, as it turned out. 

He’d always done what he’d been told. Despite the gnawing feeling that something wasn’t quite right. Despite the fact that he could not understand and it worried him. Despite the subtle, nagging  _ wrongness _ . They were the Right side. The Good side. It was simply... ineffable. It must be. It was not  _ for  _ him to understand, Aziraphael had told himself firmly. And he had gone on and done what he was told... technically. (forgiveness and permission and all that) His position had afforded him the luxury of divorcing himself from occult and ethereal politics for awhile and settling into the strange, complicated  _ comfort _ of humanity. And it had  _ worked _ for him, until the damned apocalypse had arrived of course.

Well now the lines had been drawn hadn’t they? Aziraphael reflected. Heaven had forced his hand and he’d chosen Crowley, and humanity. Of course he had. When it had come down to it and he’d realized he couldn’t have both. Crowley was on his side. Heaven wasn’t.  _ Our own side.  _ He thought fondly, glancing at his companion. 

Crowley stood up and reached down for Aziraphael’s hand. He waggled his fingers. “Come on. I’ll drive us back to London.” 

***

The world had righted itself by morning, mostly. Some things had come out a little to the left but that was alright. Nobody really noticed. Crowley had gone to check on the bookshop and Aziraphael had been unable to muffle the smile that stretched across his face when he saw Crowley’s beloved Bentley just outside the flat. Crowley will be pleased, he thought as he slid into the cab on the way to meet Crowley at the park where they would talk, as they always did, and wait for the other shoe to drop. 

***

“A tartan collar? Really?”

“Tartan is stylish” Aziraphael insisted. Crowley blew a raspberry and rolled his eyes behind his shades. 

“So, Agnes Nutter’s last prophecy was on the money,” Aziraphael remarked, mostly for something to say. He leaned in conspiratorially, “I asked them for a rubber duck,” he said, giggling, “and made the archangel Michael miracle me a towel.” 

Crowley threw back his head and laughed, both at the glee on the angel’s face and the sheer thought of the expression on Michael’s. “Ahh they’ll leave us alone… for a bit.” He sobered and continued, “if you ask me, both sides are going to use this as breathing space before the big one.”

The grin slipped from Aziraphael’s face. “I thought that was the big one.” 

“Nah, for my money, the really big one is going to be all of us, against all of them.”

Aziraphael frowned. “What? Heaven and Hell against… humanity?” _Again?... well, still? Seems that has been the case for some time now, _he supposed. Immortal hosts really were exhausting. Well, that was a long way off. And Aziraphael had already chosen his side. 

“Right, time to leave the garden,” said Crowley, leaning back languidly to look at the angel, “Let me tempt you to a spot of lunch?”

“Temptation accomplished.” Aziraphael clapped his palms to his thighs and gave a little wiggle before standing up. 

Crowley grinned covertly as he stood up.  _ Blessed old fool. Can’t take him anywhere.  _

“Hmm...What about the Ritz? I believe a table has just miraculously come free.” 

“Ahhh…”

***

“I like to think,” said Aziraphael, not one to let things go, “that none of this would have worked out if you weren’t, at heart, just a little bit of a good person.” 

“And if  _ you _ weren’t,” Crowley replied immediately, fondness belying his words, “deep down, just enough of a bastard to be worth liking.” 

Aziraphael smirked. There was really no use denying it now. 

“Cheers,” Crowley lifted his glass. “To the world.”

Affection snaked itself around Aziraphael’s heart. He beamed. “To the world.”

Neither of them mentioned what it was, exactly, that had “worked out” in this instance. Since they’d had, in the end, aside from some timely moral support, very little to do with the apocalypse being cancelled. But that didn’t seem to matter now did it? And so angels dined at the Ritz and a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square. 

  
  



	2. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the bookshop

Aziraphael was tipsy. The glowing affection from earlier has slithered all around his insides and he felt warm all over. He snuggled into the feeling. He was sure there was a silly smile on his face but he couldn’t be bothered to care about decorum anymore. What did it matter now anyway? He ran a hand down Crowley’s thigh next to him. He was vaguely aware that this was new territory. He liked it. 

Crowley was babbling about… something, waving his arms about. 

“Crowley?” Aziraphael said, swinging around to face him. 

“Mmm, yess Angel?” Crowley tended to hiss when he’d been drinking. Aziraphael enjoyed it immensely. He scooched closer to Crowley on the sofa. He promptly forgot what he’d been going to say, distracted by the clinohumite of Crowley’s eyes over the dark lenses of his shades, which had slid down his nose.

“Your eyes,” Aziraphael murmured as he slowly pulled Crowley’s glasses off and dropped them somewhere over the edge of the sofa. He stared, completely absorbed and suddenly breathless, “they’re captivating.” 

They looked at each other for a charged moment. The open adoration in Aziraphael’s gaze had Crowley weak at the knees. More than usual, even. Pure, angelic affection is no small force it turned out. 

“Nyng,” said Crowley, in the back of his throat. 

Aziraphael raised a hand and lowered his eyes to Crowey’s mouth, touching his lower lip. “May I?”

“Nyng,” Crowley said again, nodding furiously, eyes glued to Aziraphael’s pink lips which lilted softly up at the corners before closing sweetly over Crowley’s. Sweetly, but certainly not chastely. At least not for long. A clever tongue dipped into Crowley’s mouth. And oh... oh that was brilliant. Manicured fingers curled into his hair and around his back. Sweet veered quickly towards spicy as Crowley’s armful of amorous angel pressed closer than ever before. Shamelessly so, Aziraphael’s ridiculously cherubic lips were on Crowley’s neck now and Crowley had forgotten how to breathe. 

Crowley tugged ineffectually at clothing, he wasn’t sure whose. ‘_ Sssskin,’ _he thought inanely. That… that’s what they needed here. “Off… take thisss off,” he said breathlessly, fumbling with Aziraphael’s buttons. 

Aziraphael smiled indulgently and complied. He leaned back in and thumbed open the buttons on Crowley’s shirt, sliding smooth, warm hands over the flushed skin beneath. 

Crowley’s eyes fluttered closed as his heartbeat stuttered. 

“Open your eyes, darling,” Aziriphale murmured. “There,” he positively glowed when Crowley did so. “Beautiful.” 

Crowley had no choice, really, but to snake his arms around his angel and pull them chest to chest. Aziraphael made a pleased noise when Crowley’s mouth sought his again and he nudged the shirt and jacket over Crowley’s shoulders, wrangling them off and tossing them aside before wrapping both arms firmly around Crowley and bending him backward. At no point did their lips disengage, which was making Crowley a bit dizzy at this point. 

They were fully horizontal now. Aziraphael pulled back a smidge. “Are you alright, darling?” 

“Sso ssso alright.” Crowey gulped, a little wildly, eyes skating over Aziraphael’s skin. He was unable to stop his hands from following. 

Aziraphael pressed an open mouthed kiss to Crowley’s jaw. Crowley hissed as the angel’s lips and hands began to wander vaguely downwards. “How on earth are you sso good at thisss?” Crowley panted. 

Aziraphael looked up at him from somewhere around Crowley’s waist. And then the bastard _ winked. _

Crowley’s jaw dropped. “Just which one of us is ssuppossed the be the sserpent?” he muttered indignantly, failing to smother a groan as Aziraphael’s tongue came back into the equation. A clever pun about serpents flew out of his mind, along with all other higher thought processes as a smirking angel took things sharply into the realm of obscene. 

***

“Alpha Centauri?” Aziraphael asked sometime later. They were in the Bentley. Crowley had had his fun terrorizing Aziraphael with his deliberately bad driving and was now cruising with one wrist draped casually over the wheel. “You really don’t know the meaning of the word subtle do you?” Aziraphael continued when Crowley turned to look at him. “Although as grand romantic gestures go, it was very good.” 

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Well it’s not as though I really thought you would get the reference.” 

“I love you too, my dear.” Aziraphael said with a pleased grin. 

Crowley dissolved into spluttering. “What the heaven are you on about, Angel?” And attempted to mask his resulting existential confusion with a yellow glare over his glasses. 

Aziraphael did not reply and merely smiled to himself as the dulcet tones of F. Mercury swelled over the familiar grumble of the Bentley’s engine. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clinohumite - Stunning orange gemstone. Google it. You won’t regret it. 
> 
> Alpha Centauri is a star system that until fairly recently was thought to be a single star as the primary and secondary stars orbit so closely that the light from each are nearly indistinguishable. Also one of the brightest objects seen in the night sky from Earth.


End file.
